Samantha Brick Is Hated For Her Lazy Writing, Not Her Looks.

For anyone unfamiliar with the story, recently Samantha Brick, who self-titles herself as a journalist and writer, came under the wrath of the internet when she wrote a piece for the Daily Mail titled:

Zero Empathy And Understanding Of Her Audience

Whether this is by outlining your reader’s fears, hopes dreams, or perhaps sharing an experience that they can empathise with.

Samantha’s audience are readers of the Daily Mail.

The Daily Mail was Britain’s first daily paper, apparently written for : “lower-middle class market resulting from mass education, combining a low retail price with plenty of competitions, prizes and promotional gimmicks”

It sells almost 2 million copies a day.

It costs 55p.

My mum reads it when she travels down to see me on the National Express sipping cans of Gordon’s Gin and Tonic.

Samantha’s opening statement:

“On a recent flight to New York I was delighted when a stewardess came over and gave me a bottle of champagne. “This is from the captain – he wants to welcome you on board and hopes you have a great flight today”

From the opening line she has lost her audience.

Samantha is deliberately trying to “impress” her audience, but she fails because:

She chooses to introduce herself to her audience as someone who places importance on being sent champagne by the captain

She assumes the audience will be impressed by this

She reinforces the latter point by continuing:

“You’re probably thinking ‘what a lovely surprise…”

And then goes on to insult her audience by saying:

“But while it was lovely, it wasn’t a surprise. At least not for me”

Let’s deconstruct this.

Mrs Brick is equivalently saying:

“I’m awesome so people do awesome things for me. That will surprise you because you’re not awesome and these types of thing probably never happen to you… but they happen to me all the time (did I mention that?)”

Within a handful of lines, Samantha has driven a badly worded wedge between her and the audience, and wonders why she has generated little empathy.

The next piece of the article, Samantha deliberately lists several glimpses into her life which further drives her and her audience apart:

I’ve regularly had bottles of bubbly or wine sent to my restaurant table

A well-dressed chap bought my train ticket

Walking through London’s Portobello Road

A charming gentleman paid my fare as I stepped out of a cab in Paris

Bar tenders frequently shoo my credit card away

Can you see the picture that she is building up without realising it?

It goes something like this:

“I travel to New York, Paris and London, eating in restaurants, drinking champagne and drinking in bars so expensive you have to pay on credit card.”

Her decision to include these examples at the top of her article once again shows a personal emphasis on what she finds important, which is surprisingly at odds with what her reader’s find important.

“I work at mine [appearance] – I don’t drink or smoke, I work out, even when I don’t feel like it, and very rarely succumb to chocolate”

In that one sentence she has probably lost every reader who indulges in any of those things. (And from a continuity point of view – if she doesn’t drink alcohol, what is she drinking that makes her tab warrant a credit card?)

Remember that if you want to build the like know and trust factor, you never make your audience feel bad about themselves.

When it is easy to create content online, you need to spend extra time showing that the claims you make about yourself can be substantiated.

Here are some of Samantha’s reasons that purportedly prove beyond all doubt that she is hated because of her pretty looks:

I’m not smug and I’m no flirt

Women hate me for no other reason than my lovely looks

Not one girlfriend has ever asked me to be her bridesmaid

Women find nothing more annoying than someone else being the most attractive in the room

A neighbour passed by in her car. I waved – she blatantly blanked me

It’s hard when everyone resents you for your looks

Women don’t want to hang out with someone more attractive than they are

Older women are the most hostile to beautiful women

There is a large amount of generalised claims which reflects lazy journalism and no doubt insults the reader further.

It says to them:

“I’m a journalist, I write for the Mail, you’re my lowly reader and I don’t have to do any research for you – I can just write any old drivel I like.”

Again, I wouldn’t be surprised if Samantha was blissfully unaware that these sweeping generalisations damaged her credibility and the trust her audience had.

The one piece of research she did? She quoted the author of a book who has “models” for clients”.

I’d have been far more impressed with her interviewing Louise Mensch on the subject – an attractive Member of Parliament who recently launched her exclusive magazine column with an article titled “Let’s hear it for the girls” giving a high five to women who have smashed through the glass ceiling. (Samantha Brick was not on that list).

That is a lady who is intelligent and writes with substance and research.

In comparison, the proof for Samantha’s claim is based solely on 7 very short, examples – all relating to her.

By the 3rd story that once again features Samantha as the lead protagonist, the audience is tired of another badly written story, filled with holes that is supposed to evoke sympathy for her.

Take the example of the neighbour who blatantly “blanked her” in her car. This is justified by hearsay (from a friend of Samantha’s) that her neighbour is jealous of her because she is “shorter, heavier and older.”

This isn’t strong enough proof.

Instead, readers are thinking:

“Maybe the woman didn’t see her, perhaps she was thinking about something else, maybe she just received some bad news and didn’t feel like waving, maybe she didn’t want to wave…”

And of course, at this stage some people are thinking:

“Maybe she didn’t wave because she just doesn’t like the woman – I certainly don’t.”

As you know – too many unanswered questions does not make persuasive or compelling reading.

How could she have improved this?

She could have written with more substance.

Psychological studies to show that people react differently to those who are perceived as beautiful would have been useful.

Or she could have conducted a series of interviews with people on their impressions of “beautiful people.”

She could have even encouraged some of her friends to go on the record with their tales of and impressions of her apparent beauty.

Again, Samantha had the platform to reach people, and she insulted her audience with lazy writing.

Without proof, there is nothing of use or substance in this article, other than one woman’s self-portrait.

And considering that all we know about Samantha from this is that she eats out, works out, and worked in TV, there’s just not a lot there to keep the audience interested.

Share this!

About Amy Harrison

I am a copywriter, content-trainer, speaker and filmmaker teaching businesses how to avoid drab business content and write copy customers love to read. You can also find me hanging out and sharing content over on Google+.

Amy, so glad you wrote this post. The vitriol Samantha has been subjected to is pretty disgusting, but having said that, you’ve absolutely hit the nail on the head. It’s her WRITING that’s way off. Knowing your target audience is critical. Always. No exception. Unfortunately, her inability to realize that she was alienating almost every single reader meant that she conveyed herself as someone living in an egotistical (deluded) bubble – far removed from the real world.

After reading your post here, I came across this other posting by Ashley Judd. This one’s not about Samantha Black, but about Judd herself and talks about the same issue… women being judged and ridiculed for their looks.

I think Ashley Judd expresses herself and comes up with much better arguments and writing than Black does.

I agree that it deals with a similar subject with more weight, grace and clarity, and I’ll bet more people were willing to read this and think about the issues. She also focuses on one particular incident and gives it a lot more depth which is why it doesn’t have that frenetic “rant” that Samantha’s does.

I had no idea who this Samantha Black lady was before that horrible article went around last week.

I don’t know what world she lives in, but there is no way that any body is hating on her for being too beautiful. Who does she think she is? After reading her original article and then Google-ing her to find out who she is, I can only conclude that she’s ugly on the outside and on the inside.

It’s a fine line, obviously we want to promote what “we’re” doing, and to show we’re good at it. Reminding yourslef of customer testimonials, and good results which have helped other people is a nice starting point to ease into it. Samantha didn’t have many of those! 🙂

Reminds me of those circumstances where you really find a woman annoying, and she catches you or other people talking about her, and then (just to make your blood boil) she says you’re saying that stuff because you’re jealous. No…it’s because you’re an annoying person…jeez.

Only an anti-woman editor would agree to print the “she’s just jealous” type of journalism.

I did find the online comments towards Samantha extremely inappropriate though. People hate cocky women. I don’t like her, but I’m not gonna contribute to the backlash for her acting “out of her place”.

Great post. I had no idea who the woman was until reading this and afterwards I am not sure I want to know.

To me the greatest mistake was centering the piece on herself. The problem may be a real one and had she picked out a couple of other women and interviewed them about it then it might actually have mattered.

With more than 5000 comments as I am writing this she certainly got peoples attention, but I doubt it will change anything except the number of people who do not think highly of her.

Given her description of herself and your description of the paper one can wonder what she is doing there in the first place. Maybe her looks are as plain as the paper she works for, but nobody dared telling her until now.

Hi Jan!
Thanks for your comment – I would have loved to hear from other people in this story, but a lack of different perspectives makes it too easy to dismiss as “delusional” rantings like a lot of the critics do.

She got a huge amount of attention, but I’m not sure how it affects her credibility long term…

Trackbacks

[…] 94. Famous connections – Every now and then a celebrity story will overlap into your industry. In this magazine, 60s Mod band Small Faces held their annual convention. Representative of the Mod era, and the scooters that went with this, it makes an interesting read. However, don’t think you need a direct connection between someone famous and your industry. You can always take charge and keep your eyes out for a famous or notorious figure to feature with your own industry angle on it. […]